300,000 North Koreans have fled to China risking their lives to flee the mass starvation and brutal oppression of the Stalinist North Korea Kim Jong regime.

Monday, July 19, 2010

North Korea unveils statue of Kim Jong-il

North Korea has unveiled a statue of leader Kim Jong-il, probably the first in the communist country. "It is our highest privilege and good fortune to be able to unveil a bronze statue of our comrade commander for the first time in our country," Gen. Kim Jong-gak, a vice director of the People's Army's General Political Bureau, was quoted as saying by an army newsletter that also carried a picture of the statue.

The streets of Pyongyang are riddled with statues of former leader Kim Il-sung, but this is the first representing Kim Jong-il.

"There have been instances when loyal officials insisted on erecting a statue of Kim Jong-il, but Kim always declined," a senior defector who escaped from the North last year said. "He also initially rejected a proposal back in the 1980s to hang portraits of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il side by side, which led to confusion among the public over which picture to hang on their walls.

A South Korean intelligence official said. "The emergence of statues of a leader signifies the end of his reign." Statues of Kim Il-sung began to appear at the end of his reign and the start of Kim Jong-il's leadership.

The bronze statue may be a project by his son Jong-un, who is widely expected to inherit the North Korean throne.